The Carver CX.4 is brand new for 2013. We’ve made significant improvements to this front-only truck that gives it unprecedented thrust and pump, as well as increased turn radius and snap-back. With a few carves side to side you immediately begin to generate speed, and with a little more pumping you can gain significant speed. The thrust generated is so powerful you can even pump uphill. So whether you’re surfing the sidewalk, flowing through a skatepark or big-wave surfing downhill, you never have to put your foot down to make a section. For years many longboard companies have falsely claimed that their boards ‘feel just like surfing’, but we took that promise seriously. So while the CX may just look like a regular RKP (Reverse King Pin) style truck, the simple appearance of this patented surfkate hides its true performance. What you get is a truck that has all the thrust of a surfboard but with a lighter and more stable pushing platform. While these two properties would seem contradictory, through a careful pairing of both the thrust-prone geometry and a sculpted bushing cup that hugs the urethane bushings in just the right way, you get a truck that is both loose when you want to pump and stable when you want to push or land tricks. Plus without the swiveling arm of our C7 surf truck, the CX is both lighter and easier to ride fakie, opening up your ability to perform tricks involving reverse riding like 180 slides while still feeling that reverse-riding-surfboard feel.

Thrust

The secret ingredient in the CX performance is the thrust you get with each pump and carve. You can see the extreme turn angle of the hanger, and what this gives you is more turn at the nose compared with the tail (check out the C2 rear truck tech specs page for comparison)This creates the same dynamic you get with a surfboard, where you pivot your turns from the tail. We tilted the overall geometry of the previous CX.3 by 3 degrees, essentially wedging the whole truck and sharpening the turn angle. We’ve also raised the bushing seat, and increased the height of the bottom bushing to .65” so each turn creates more hanger projection to the side, essentially pushing you forward with every carve. This new bottom bushing set up, paired with a top bushing of .55”, makes them interchangeable with all current RKP bushing sets. Plus with more clearance under the hanger you can even use double barrel bushings with a flat washer for the most combinations of aftermarket customization ever.Height

We increased the height of the CX baseplate so you can use 70 mm Roundhouse wheels and get the full tilt during deep carving while still controlling wheelbite. This has reduced the number of 3/16” risers used on lower models from 3 to 1, so if you ride a 70 mm wheel you only need one riser. If you ride our smaller 65 mm Roundhouse wheels you can eliminate any risers and still get full range turning without wheelbite. The reduction of 2 risers eliminates their added weight, plus it shortens the mounting hardware. With longer hardware you get some baseplate twisting as your truck turns, reducing the direct forces on the truck and increasing wear on the wood deck around the screw heads. Shorter hardware provides a more secure and longer lasting mount. Whenever you use aftermarket wheels though, always check for full turn range and use as many risers as you need to prevent bite.Precision Pin

The key to the smooth and effortless action of this truck literally pivots on the machined pivot pin. The precisely polished pin fits the pivot cup perfectly so there’s no side-to-side dance or restrictive binding, either of which compromises performance. We put a dab of grease on the pivot so it rotates effortlessly, so all you feel is the resilient rebound of the urethane bushings. Further, this polish eliminates pivot cup wear, giving you long-lasting performance. Beyond just a pivot pin, this joint now acts just like a thrust bearing, but without the added weight, complexity or cost of needle bearings.

Mounting

Because the CX is a Reverse King Pin (RKP) front truck, the kingpin faces forward when the truck is mounted to the nose. This is the opposite of the rear C2 truck, which is a Standard King Pin (SKP) truck. Since this is a directional set up like a surfboard, the advantage of this is that both front and rear axles are trailing behind the kingpins, reducing the propensity for leading-axle induced wobbles. Further reducing this tendency is the differential between the front and back turn rates. This is because as the front turns more sharply, the rear has a more moderate rate of turn and acts as a sort of rolling rudder that stabilizes the board at higher speeds.

History of the Carver CX Truck

So for the past 16 years we’ve subscribed to the philosophy of Kaizen, or continuous improvement. So for the past 9 years we’ve continued to work on ways to make each new version of this truck perform better than the last. With this latest version, the CX.4, we’ve boosted the performance of this truck to have an amount of thrust none of us ever thought possible. Here’s the history of this incredible truck:

CX.1

2004-2005: We knew early on that by raising the bushing seat and adding extra trail to the axle that we could create the kind of thrust that was inspired by our C7 truck, but with the simplicity of an RKP design, and it is the basis for our patented geometry. At the time we wanted to make this truck look as much like a regular truck as possible, but we went a little crazy on the side ribs!

CX.2

2006-2009: In our quest to make this look more like a standard truck the first thing we did was reduce the big ribbed ‘wings’. We also added some beef to the pivot pin for impact strength and sculpted the bushing cup sidewalls to form natural wheelbite stops.

CX.3

2010-2012: We wanted to increase the overall range of the turn to make the thrust ever closer to the gold-standard C7, so we opened up the bushing cup area to allow for more range before the cup washer bumped against the hanger. We also added taller ribs around the bushing area for increased hanger strength, but kept the original geometry, which still felt generally stiffer than the C7.

CX.4

2013-present: Since our extensive research and innovation with the Precision Pin developed on our CV RKP truck, we learned what a dramatic impact the smooth pivot had on pump. We also introduced new prototyping methods that allowed us to fully adjust the geometry of our test trucks to determine ways to boost performance, and once we applied those to our patented CX/RKP concept we unleashed significant increases in both thrust and stability. By far the most advanced truck of its kind, unparalleled in the market.